Classroom Activity

Art Starters: Diego Rivera

Part of Art Tales for Pre-K

When Diego Rivera was a young artist, he traveled to different countries and explored new ways of painting. After his travels, Rivera returned to his home country of Mexico, where he combined new techniques from the places he visited with the traditions of his homeland. This still life includes objects that reminded him of his home in Mexico.

An abstracted jug, bottles, shapes reminiscent of balled up paper or fabric, and a needle-like letter opener are gathered on a wood square in this horizontal still life painting. Rectangles in shades of corn yellow, violet purple, burgundy red-and-black checks, white, black, and spruce green splay out behind the objects like untidily stacked placemats. The brown jug is at the center, and an echo of its form in teal blue presumably represents a shadow. Portions of the jug, wooden board, and crumpled material shift color and pattern as they intersect or overlap with other areas. The artist’s initials, “DMR,” are stenciled in yellow in the lower left corner.
Diego Rivera, No. 9, Nature Morte Espagnole, 1915, oil on canvas, Gift of Katharine Graham, 2002.19.1

Grade Level

Subject

Language

Look

What shapes do you see? Look for circles, triangles, and rectangles.

Do you recognize any of these objects? Which ones?

Which objects can you see from above? Which can you see from the side? Which can you see through?

Pretend you can reach inside this painting and pick up one thing. Which would you choose? What might it feel like?

Read

Not a Box (Spanish language version: No es una caja)
by Antoinette Portis

A bunny explores how a box is not always just a box.

Diego Rivera: His World and Ours
by Duncan Tonatiuh

This book tells the story of Rivera as a young boy who loved art and dreamed of making his community proud.

MAKE: Create a still life collage

You Will Need

  • Heavyweight paper
  • Colored pencils
  • Assorted colored or patterned papers
  • Scissors
  • Glue stick

First, gather three to five objects from around your home. To make your still life more interesting, try to choose objects with different colors, patterns, shapes, and textures. Like Diego Rivera, you might want to include some objects that are special to you. Arrange the objects on a low table so you can see them from all sides.

One by one, draw each object. Focus on simple shapes such as circles, triangles, rectangles, and squares. Try standing in a different spot and drawing some of the items from different viewpoints—from above, below, or another side. You might draw one object on a colored piece of paper and another object on a patterned piece of paper.

Cut out all of your drawings and arrange them on a sheet of heavyweight paper. Once you’re happy with your arrangement, glue the drawings down to create a still life collage. 

Vocab Bank

  • homeland
  • object
  • pattern
  • still life
  • viewpoint

Download

Art Tales: Coloring and Cut-Outs booklet (PDF, 3.5 MB)

Art Tales for Pre-K (PDF, 7.2 MB)

Primeros Pasos En El Arte (PDF, 7.5 MB)

Primeros Pasos En El Arte: Colorear y Recortes (PDF, 3.7 MB)

An Eye for Art: Diego Rivera teaching resource (PDF, 9.4 MB)
 

Visit

Register for the Art Tales pre-K school tour

Submit Student Work

Send images of your students' projects that follow these activities - email [email protected]

You may also like

Black lines and one small, black triangular shape stand out against patches of color, in indigo and sky blue, pumpkin orange, butter yellow, emerald green, and ruby red, against a white background in this vertical, abstract painting. The paint seems thinly applied, resembling watercolor. Near the lower right corner, the black shape is roughly triangular and has five curving, parallel lines emanating from the bottom. Given the title of this painting, Improvisation 31, Sea Battle, the black lines could represent tall masts and outlines of sails amid areas of vibrant color that make up a boat and water around it.

Educational Resource:  Art Starters: Wassily Kandinsky

A lesson for preschool to kindergarten students about artist Wassily Kandinsky’s 1913 painting Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle). Students learn how to look at this painting, what you can read to learn more, how to paint music yourself, and a list of vocabulary terms related to this activity.

We look slightly down onto a crush of pedestrians, horse-drawn carriages, wagons, and streetcars enclosed by a row of densely spaced buildings and skyscrapers opposite us in this horizontal painting. The street in front of us is alive with action but the overall color palette is subdued with burgundy red, grays, and black, punctuated by bright spots of harvest yellow, shamrock green, apple red, and white. Most of the people wear long dark coats and black hats but a few in particular draw the eye. For instance, in a patch of sunlight in the lower right corner, three women wearing light blue, scarlet-red, or emerald-green dresses stand out from the crowd. The sunlight also highlights a white spot on the ground, probably snow, amid the crowd to our right. Beyond the band of people in the street close to us, more people fill in the space around carriages, wagons, and trolleys, and a large horse-drawn cart piled with large yellow blocks, perhaps hay, at the center of the composition. A little in the distance to our left, a few bare trees stand around a patch of white ground. Beyond that, in the top half of the painting, city buildings are blocked in with rectangles of muted red, gray, and tan. Shorter buildings, about six to ten stories high, cluster in front of the taller buildings that reach off the top edge of the painting. The band of skyscrapers is broken only by a gray patch of sky visible in a gap between the buildings to our right of center, along the top of the canvas. White smoke rises from a few chimneys and billboards and advertisements are painted onto the fronts of some of the buildings. The paint is loosely applied, so many of the people and objects are created with only a few swipes of the brush, which makes many of the details indistinct. The artist signed the work with pine-green paint near the lower left corner: “Geo Bellows.”

Educational Resource:  Art Starters: George Bellows

A lesson for preschool to kindergarten students about artist George Bellows' 1911 oil on canvas painting New York. Students learn how to look at this painting, what you can read to learn more, how to create your own city scene, and a list of vocabulary terms related to this activity.

The sculpture has elongated, thin legs sprawled out in various directions. It is made of bronze, giving it a dark, metallic appearance that contrasts with its surroundings. At the center of all the legs is a cylindrical shape elevated off the ground which appears to be a body. There are grooves and indentations along the legs and body. The setting is outdoors, in a garden or park area, with grass and hedges surrounding the sculpture. In the background, there are trees with foliage in shades of orange and yellow. There are also several outdoor chairs visible under the trees.

Educational Resource:  Art Starters: Louise Bourgeois

A lesson for preschool to kindergarten students about artist Louise Bourgeois' sculpture Spider. Students learn how to look at this sculpture, what you can read to learn more, how to create your own symbolic sculpture, and a list of vocabulary terms related to this activity.